On the ground
by eyrianone
Summary: 'You can't feel your heart beating when you're staring at it on the ground.' Post-ep 'Hunt'. One shot, complete.


**Title: **On the Ground

**Author:** eyrianone

**Rating:** T

**Spoilers:** Post-Ep 'Hunt'

**Summary:** 'You can't feel your heart beating when you're staring at it on the ground'

**Disclaimer:** (From ViaLethe) – 'Words are mine. World ain't.'

* * *

You can't feel your heart beating  
When you're staring at it on the ground  
You can hardly even see it through the ashes all around  
You can't run like you're free when  
You can't give up what's got you down

_**Lyric from 'Hiding Place', by Hedley.**_

* * *

Kate's not actually as okay as she'd like to be, as she's been pretending she is. Holding herself together through days of stress and worry. Being the strong one, trying to stay both positive and focused. Ending up feeling worse than useless, completely unable to help him. She lays awake in the empty expanse of Castle's bed as he checks for the fourth time tonight on his daughter, and she senses her iron-clad grip on control finally spinning away from her. Feels her determined stranglehold on 'happy' and 'relieved' and 'I'm just so glad' up and desert.

Scrambling she tries to focus again on the positive here.

Dinner at least was joyful. And Castle's quiet confession to his mother – about who really helped him (not Interpol), and why Alexis was the target. Well it made sense of the fantastical and it explained the leads she'd gotten and then been stuck on. But yeah - she did not see his father coming with this. Not at all.

She's happy for him, she is. Stunned, but truly happy that he knows now. That he has answers for some of his questions, even if he's always claimed not to need them. And grateful, she's grateful that this man did what he did and came through for her partner when he was needed the most. She's grateful that he cares, that he watches out, has always watched out for them in his way.

She's even thrilled that he has let Castle know that he got out okay.

But lying here alone in the dark she finds that personally she's still reeling from the echo of a gunshot down a phone line. Caught up reliving a moment when yet again it felt like her heart had just stopped beating.

And this time when she'd thought him dead instead of minutes it was hour upon hour of that feeling.

Hours when the clock ticked by mockingly as time continued its rampant march forwards, and dammit the world had stopped for her. It had ended. Ceased to be. And everything about the fact that she was still trapped in it and breathing was wrong somehow. Not the way it was supposed to be.

Because she should have been with him. That had been all she could think about. Damn fool that he was, she should have been there to protect him.

She'd spent the hours numb and wishing she'd just gotten on a plane. Not that realistically she could have gotten there in time and found him – but she couldn't get past the thought that he'd died, and she hadn't taken even the barest hint of action to prevent it.

She'd focused on the case. She'd stayed a cop.

She'd completely done the right thing, the sensible thing, the logical thing.

The only thing he'd let her.

And for hours she'd felt hatred towards herself for all of it. Despised herself for not seeing the warning signs in a timely enough manner that she could have forced him into taking her with him.

God, if he ever tries to ditch her again . . .

The brewing storm hits suddenly, and then she's drowning.

* * *

Castle creeps back down the stairs silently, the loft comforting even in the dead of night with its sense of home, its warmth and innate familiarity. He knows it will be some time before he feels any kind of desire to get away from either it, or the city again.

It's going to be a struggle in fact for him to even let his daughter out of his sight any time soon. Sighing, the author accepts grudgingly that there is work ahead for the pair of them.

Still, he finds that he's managing to smile as he makes his way back towards his bedroom, because he'd honestly been expected nightmares tonight out of Alexis. He'd anticipated that his daughter would have some trouble sleeping. And though it confounds him a little that Alexis is out for the count and that her rest is easy, she's in her own bed, in her own home and he's close by if she needs him. He'll call it a win for tonight and get back to bed. Hopefully his constant bouts of worry, the desperate urges he's dealt with tonight constantly checking up on her, haven't prevented Kate from sleeping.

He isn't at all prepared for what he walks into.

Oh God, Kate.

His girlfriend's slender arms are wrapped tightly around what appears to be his pillow, and she's sobbing uncontrollably. Distraught as if she'll never again know the comfort of holding him to her.

She looks – bereft.

For a long drawn out moment it just blindsides him. He just can't think of anything to account for it, because she was completely fine during dinner. This drastic change in her emotional state doesn't make any sense to him.

Castle searches further back and comes up with nothing, until he recalls the remnants of terror in her green eyes when he walked through the door earlier and she made a beeline straight for him. Come to think of it there was a tiny tremble in her fingers against his skin as she kissed him. And the way she kept stroking his hand while they ate, her eyes constantly alighting on his face, like she needed to keep reassuring herself he was actually there with her.

_The gunshot . . ._

How did he not think about that until now?

Oh, he's _such_ an idiot. Even though he knows he did what he had to, he also knows he has something to apologize for here.

He doesn't say anything because in the moment he can't talk around the lump that's sitting now lodged in his throat. He just crosses the bedroom quickly, clambers up onto the bed and pulls her to him swiftly.

She comes unresistingly. Wraps herself around his torso, buries her face against the breadth of his chest and she shakes. All of her trembling with the force of her emotions, the t-shirt separating her from his skin rapidly getting wet.

"I'm sorry," he manages to murmur into her hair. "God, Kate. I'm so sorry."

The sound of his voice must be comforting because her gasping sobs ease. She tightens her hold on him, but something in her posture eases.

So he waits it out – the storm. Waits to explain himself, and just stays with her in the moment . Be's her anchor through it.

Eventually of course, Kate Beckett reappears.

She pushes herself up, eyes bloodshot and her pale face still tear stained, she raises her upper body so that she can face him. Tries for a smile, and fails.

"You did what you had to," she says, ending the sentence with a hiccup and shaky intake of breath.

He nods his face graven. Glimpses of that single-minded pursuit visibly on display in the tired lines around his eyes - the lingering hollowness in them.

"I'm not mad at you," she says quietly, not wanting him to worry as she attempts to explain this.

"I shut you out," he whispers. "I didn't think about what the last sound was that you heard on the phone. I didn't think about you at all until we were at the Embassy and Alexis was safe again."

"No," she agrees, "You didn't. But I understand."

"She's my daughter," he says weakly, "Alexis, she's-"

Kate interrupts him, covers his mouth with her hand. "She's the center of your universe. She's _all _that matters. Please Castle, I promise that you don't have to explain that to me."

She means it. He can see that. Her troubled face is all empathy and compassion; all worry for both him and his child. But he's done this before. He's broken relationships because of this before, and unless he learns to be different about this there will come a time when she doesn't understand. He takes a deep breath, and for a moment his eyes close, the feeling of her fingertips against his lips too simple a pleasure to resist.

Fixing her with a gentle stare, he tugs her hand away, tangles her fingers up with his.

"I'm sorry," he says firmly. "I'm sorry that I shut you out. I'm sorry I didn't stop to realize how well you would understand. I'm sorry that I let myself slip back into a habit I'd sworn to break. I'm so sorry Kate, you deserve so much better than that."

Her eyes look black in the darkness, but he can still read in them her struggle to follow what he's getting at.

"Kate, I raised her all on my own for the most part. I never had to ask permission, or compromise on a decision. And in my relationships . . . "he falters.

"In your relationships-"she repeats.

"I didn't share her. I didn't let anyone else get close. It's like she was mine, and mine alone. Meredith – she never demanded much from me, and though I wanted Alexis to have a mother, I never wanted to give up even the tiniest amount of control. And I put her first – always. To such exclusion that even in those moments when I could and should have found a compromise I didn't even try."

Kate shrugs.

"She's your first consideration Castle. I don't think you need to apologize for that."

He sighs; clearly he's not explaining this as well as he should be.

"I let you down," he says, and he's angry with himself now that he comes to think about it. "The moment I could contact you and let you know I was okay I should have grabbed a moment and done so. You _deserve_ that Kate. And it's okay to demand that of me. It's okay to demand your rightful place on my list of priorities. To yell and scream and rail at me for treating you so thoughtlessly, even when it's my daughter's welfare that's occupying my mind."

She stares at him open-mouthed, so he pulls her hand to his chest, flattens her palm over his heart.

"This beats for _both_ of you," he says gently. "It would stop without _either_ one."

Her eyes fill with tears that don't have to fall this time. Her lips quiver and she finally gives herself permission to spill out what must be said.

"I thought you were dead. For hours and hours Castle I honestly thought you were _dead_. I thought Alexis was gone, and you were gone and I love both of you so much. I didn't want to face your mother with it so I kept on working. I kept trying to focus and I kept trying not to think that my life was just over, and I - my heart is just on the ground. . . "she stops suddenly. Afraid again of this torrent within her.

"What did you say?"

Her eyes find his face and he's beaming.

"You heard me," she says defensively. "Castle, you can't honestly tell me that you didn't already know?"

He shakes his head.

"You _show_ me everyday," he replies. "But that doesn't lessen the impact of hearing those words any, Kate."

The adoring look in his eyes, the joy her finally saying it has brought him. Oh, she's never going to want anything as much as she wants him to always look at her like that.

"So you agree that you'll never, ever, on pain of death and torture - even if it's for your daughter, disappear on me like that in _any _form or fashion _ever_ again."

He nods his head.

"Never again for as long as you love me," he agrees.

"I go with you."

He nods, "We go together."

Freeing her hand from under his Kate throws her arms around his neck and as she settles against him she whispers in his ear,

"Always."


End file.
